In a public rally on Sunday ACT-Wazalendo Vice Chairman, Ismail Jussa Ladhu highlighted the staggering increase in foreign debt, which surged from Sh155.8 billion in 2020 to the current amount, representing a 609.3 percent rise, with little tangible progress to show for itContinue Reading
Serikali ya Tanzania imewaondoa hofu Watanzania kuwa fedha zitakazotumika kukarabati viwanja vya michezo vinavyomilikiwa na Chama cha Mapinduzi (CCM) zitarejeshwa kwa umma, ili zitumike kufanya mambo mengine.Continue Reading
After 10 months of dedicating time and energy to learn, challenge themselves, try business solutions they never had before, 34 women entrepreneurs met to celebrate and be celebrated by others on June 6th. These Women Creating Wealth (WCW) Tanzania programme participants graduated at an event held in Dar er Salaam signaling the end of one part of their journey with the Graça Machel Trust’s flagship entrepreneurship programme.
The WCW entrepreneurship programme supports women entrepreneurs to develop the skills, tools, and networks they need to transform their businesses from income generators to wealth-generating enterprises. It addresses the growth mindset, agency, personal mastery, and leadership, and provides participants with coaching, mentorship, and technical support. Additionally, the programme facilitates access to markets and finance for women entrepreneurs while working to highlight and dismantle discriminatory economic systems and processes.
It currently has over 2 500 participants in South Africa, Zambia, Kenya Malawi, Senegal Tanzania, and Uganda who have been in business for longer than two years and are ready to gain the skills and tools to strengthen and scale their businesses.
Comprising GMT Country Project Coordinator Brenda Evelyn Mihanjo, Dr Deogratias Mbona WCW Technical Coach, GMT Coordinator and Coach Gloria Lema, with WCW participants Regina Fumbuka and Sabrina Othman a panel discussion unpacked the importance of holistic support for entrepreneurs. Dr Deogratias emphasised how technical coaching helps the programme participants apply the theory learned through the course to their businesses and with guidance from their coaches throughout the 6 months of the mentorship phase. This enables them to make practical adjustments the create long-lasting impact.
Participants praised how the programme has impacted their personal lives and businesses, with Sabrina, who has been in business for 14 years sharing how the it helped put systems in place that have made it easy to manage teams of her two businesses. She also encouraged new participants to embrace the Know Find and Grow Your Money course which challenges women to familiarise themselves with their business finance “You have to know what comes in and what goes out, that helps you to know your numbers, plan, and project.”
Engineer Regina who helps students to love and excel in mathematics through her project MathGenius, says the programme has helped her to put a business portfolio together as well as systems in place that help her to reach out to much more parents as she delivers the service online and physically.
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“A lot of women who have been part of the programme across the 7 countries say: ‘before the programme, my chances of raising capital were 20% and after going through the programme it’s 80%.’ We want of more them to raise the money and have accountability partners that help them truly grow their businesses” Korkor Kudjoe said, speaking to the importance of and impact of supporting the women entrepreneurs.
After graduation participants benefit from being part of a business community that offers support and business opportunities. Speaking to the women about what comes next, Kudjoe said: We want you to be part of our audacious goal to support 10,000 women entrepreneurs on the continent to collectively generate $1 billion revenue and create 200,000 jobs within the next five years. So, we want you to thrive and grow so you can help us create those jobs and that wealth.”
*The next call for applications will start on 14 June 2024.
*Watch the ceremony stream here
Source: allafrica.com
By Alex Hammer For Dailymail.Com Published: 16:43 EDT, 9 June 2024 | Updated: 19:50 EDT, 9 June 2024 A millionaire investment banker was filmed punching a woman in the face, causing her to fall to the ground, on the streets of New York on Saturday evening. Jonathan Kaye, 52, wasContinue Reading
Taasisi ya Uhasibu Tanzania (TIA) kupitia kwa Kaimu Mtendaji Mkuu wake, Dk Momole Kasambala imetangaza mpango wake wa kuhakikisha wanafunzi wenye mahitaji maalumu wanaosoma kwenye vyuo vya taasisi hiyo, wanapata mafunzo ya teknolojia kama wanafunzi wengine.Continue Reading
Mbali na hilo, amesema Tanzania ina marafiki wengi, haina maadui kokote duniani na ndiyo maana mambo yanakwenda vizuri nchini.Continue Reading
Analysts looked at data from Forvo, an online pronunciation dictionary French brands claim the top spot as the world’s least pronounceable companies By Wiliam Hunter Published: 08:47 EDT, 8 June 2024 | Updated: 08:51 EDT, 8 June 2024 From Peugeot to Marlboro, brands across the world are struggling with anContinue Reading
South Korea is dangling market reorientation and technological expertise to gain access to African countries, joining a list of global powers wanting a slice of the continent’s resources.
But at the Korea-Africa Summit this week in Seoul, the Asian country steered clear of promising actual technology transfer to Africa, one of the things leaders gathered there had asked directly.
East African leaders — President William Ruto of Kenya, Samia Suluhu Hassan of Tanzania, Paul Kagame of Rwanda and Yoweri Museveni (represented by his Vice-President Jessica Alupo) — had requested technology cooperation, balanced trade and work on debt reduction through multilateral lenders among the issues they considered critical for their economies.
They arrived in Seoul praising South Korea’s technological advances, including the fact that the country is one of the biggest buyers of energy and has lately focused on semiconductor production, making it a sure market for Africa’s useful minerals in the energy transition business.
Read: Why South Korea wants a piece of Africa
But leaders had also been familiar with the criticism that most of the natural resources leaving Africa are never processed locally and technology is never bequeathed to locals.
“I, therefore, call for a significant enhancement of technology transfer and knowledge exchange in order to empower our youth and spur inclusive economic development,” Kenya’s Ruto told the audience at the opening session on Tuesday.
Later, on Wednesday, during the Korea-Africa Business Summit, Ruto argued Korean firms can take advantage of Kenya’s desire to add 3GW of power to its grid from green resources, using their technology. “There is a huge opportunity for South Korean industries and investors to leverage the comparative advantages of Kenya and other African countries in clean energy by establishing reliable supply chain networks, decarbonising production and consumption and growing African and Korean economies.”
President Hassan also weighed in on clean energy, focusing on clean cooking.
“Increased investment in clean cooking solutions will not only lower emissions and reduce deforestation, but will also reduce respiratory-related deaths and empower women,” she said. “Investing in the clean cooking agenda in Africa also presents economic opportunities in terms of development of clean cooking solutions on the continent.”
Koreans, however, weren’t committed on technology transfer per se. They promised the Tech4Africa initiative aimed at supporting the education and training of Africa’s young population. They did pledge to strengthen cooperation in science and digital technology, as well as training opportunities, which they argue is useful for overall productivity of economies.
“We are committed to making efforts to share Korea’s expertise in the fields of digital government including the Customs e-Clearance system (Uni-Pass), the Korea ON-line E-Procurement system (Koneps), and the Korean Statistical Information Service (Kosis),” said a joint declaration between the two sides that also promised to enhance people-to-people exchanges.
African leaders had called for technology transfer, especially to enable countries to learn from Korea’s developed technology in robotics, biotechnology, artificial intelligence and related areas.
Read: South Korea agrees to lend billions to Tanzania, Ethiopia
“This summit serves to remind us that even more can be done. From artificial intelligence and robotics to small modular nuclear reactors, to driving the energy transition with critical raw materials, Africa and Korea should be working side-by-side,” said President Kagame.
President Museveni said the summit should be an opportunity for Africa to ‘mirror the economic progress that we see in Korea today’.
“The globalised economy is reliant on technology, a sector that the Republic of Korea has continued to excel in. We therefore look forward to the knowledge sharing and transferring from Korea.”
There is usually a problem with countries allowing technology transfer, which means that they have to bequeath the developing countries to copy and localise it.
Pradeep Mehta, Secretary-General of CUTS International, a lobby that monitors rules and policies on international trade, says developed nations are wary of copyright infringements.
“All developed countries are reluctant in tech transfer because of weak enforcement of IPR (intellectual property rights) regimes. AfCFTA should be the counterpart of foreign countries to negotiate trade and investment agreements with Africa,” he told The EastAfrican after the summit, referring to the Africa Continental Free Trade Area agreement, which seeks to open up markets on the continent.
“Effective IPR protection has to be pushed upwards. It is a gradual process in the Global South. Otherwise, tech transfer becomes difficult and foreign manufacturers find it more convenient to sell goods and services. This means that the value addition becomes more difficult thus industrialisation suffers.”
The AfCFTA itself has been adopted sluggishly in spite of coming into force three years ago. In Korea, AfCFTA Secretary-General Wamukele Mene signed an MoU with the Korea International Trade Agency to establish the Korea-Africa Economic Committee ‘to facilitate effective cooperation between the parties’.
“With the AfCFTA providing a unified framework for economic activity, we have the perfect platform to enhance our cooperation and create a brighter future for all,” Mene said.
The summit was the first ever at the level of heads of State or government. But there had been previous meetings between line ministers of agriculture and economy, signalling Korea’s focus areas for its investment.
Read: Ruto, Samia eye trade deals with South Korea
Seoul had said it was coming into the summit ‘series with a new model; that of human development and management, rather than just aid. They promised to double official development assistance (ODA) to $10 billion by 2030 and pump $14 billion to fund Korean companies’ investments in Africa.
To do that, they pledged to pursue bilateral arrangements with African countries, focusing on Economic Partnership Agreements, Trade and Investment Promotion Frameworks, Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements, and Investment Protection Agreements, which they said will “facilitate mutual access for each other’s products to their respective markets”.
Some countries like Tanzania, Kenya and Morocco have begun discussing EPAs with Korea. But whether they boost or undercut the continental free trade area agreement known as AfCTA will be a matter of wait-and-see.
“The best bet is to push for a collective African free trade agreement. The Republic of Korea has no free trade agreement with Africa, which make African agricultural products uncompetitive,” Ngovi Kitau, a former Kenyan ambassador to South Korea, told The EastAfrican. “Keep in mind that Korean population is similar to that of Kenya, 50 million. That limits demand for consumables.”
There was something to carry home, however. Uganda signed a $500 million loan to help finance infrastructure building in the country, Uganda’s Finance ministry said on Thursday. South Korea’s Exim Bank will provide the loan.
Kenya signed a $485 million concessional development funding, which includes $238 million for the implementation of the Konza Digital Media City Project which State House in Nairobi said will help provide “an excellent digital media and entertainment ecosystem for research, training and the propagation of new technologies”.
Koreans had been supporting Konza project through the Economic Innovation Partnership Programme and had helped start the Kenya Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Kenya-Aist) mimicking the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.
He said Kenya-Aist is nearing completion and will be unveiled later this year. He invited President Yoon to Kenya during the official opening of the institute.
Reporting by Aggrey Mutambo and Apolinari Tairo
Rich countries and organisations that were previously sending grants to Africa as official development assistance (ODA) have now resorted to lending instead, worsening the debt crisis that African countries face, a new report shows.
The report titled ‘A world of Debt’ published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) reveals that the share ODA has given in form of loans instead of grants has increased by over six percent since 2012.
This has pushed countries that have traditionally relied on aid into a debt crisis, with many countries on the continent now spending more money on interest payment for their debts than vital sectors such as health or education.
“The decline in overall aid, the increasing use of loans and the sharp reduction in debt relief resources add further pressure on developing countries burdened by debt,” the UN agency said in the report published this week.
Read: Debt, pending bills batter Africa economies in 2024
Currently, it is estimated that about 34 percent, or one-third, of what comes to Africa as ODA are packaged as concessional loans and not grants as was the norm previously. In 2012, this was 28 percent, an indication that donors are increasingly resorting to lending instead of donating.
This, added to the fact that the developing world are grappling with much higher interest payment on their sovereign loans, has contributed to a spiralling debt crisis impacting most countries on the continent currently.
According to the Unctad report, the world debt has exponentially grown over the last decade, rising from $50 trillion in 2010 to over $97 trillion as of 2023, yet, in developing countries, the rate of growth was twice as fast.
Africa’s debt, for instance, grew from an average of 30 percent as a ratio of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2010, to over 60 percent currently, while most developed countries have a debt-to-GDP ratio of less than 40 percent.
At the same time, debt servicing costs have skyrocketed over the decade, disproportionately affecting developing countries, with Africa now paying 9.8 times more interest on their sovereign bonds than developed countries like Germany, for instance.
“High borrowing costs increase the resources needed to pay creditors, which makes it difficult for developing countries to finance investments,” says the report.
According to the report, the high cost of debt service for Africa is impacting citizens as countries divert resources from crucial sectors such as health and education to pay their debt. Last year, a record 54 countries across the globe allocated at least 10 percent of their government revenues to interest payment alone. Half of these countries were African.
Data by Unctad shows that while countries on the continent now spend an average of $39 on health and $60 on education for each of their citizens, they spend about $70 per capita on interest payment.
In comparison, countries in Latin America spend $323 per citizen on healthcare, $364 per person on education and only $280 per capita on interest payment. Consequently, 768 million Africans, over half of the continent’s populace, live in countries that spend more on interest payment than on healthcare.
African leaders gathering in Seoul on Tuesday agreed to ensure an organised, stable supply of minerals to South Korea, enabling the Asian country new entry to critical raw material for energy transition.
The assurance was provided in a joint declaration between leaders of South Korea and counterparts or representatives from 48 countries attending the Korea-Africa Summit.
Under the arrangement announced by Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Mauritanian counterpart Mohamed Ould Ghazouani as AU Chairperson, the two sides will launch a high-level dialogue through which to discuss the supply from Africa’s mineral-rich countries.
Those discussions will also decide how Korean firms can invest in the mineral extraction sectors and how to add value to the products.
“In this context, we agree to launch the Korea-Africa Critical Minerals Dialogue during this summit which will serve as an important institutional foundation for enhancing cooperation between Korea and Africa. In addition, we share a common view on enhancing cooperative efforts to ensure the stable supply of critical minerals and promote technology collaboration related to critical minerals on mutually agreed terms.”
Read: Why South Korea wants a piece of Africa
Koreans called for this Summit, coming late to the party of other major world powers who have been securing similar arrangements. But Seoul said its bid was collaborative and will serve as a “a model example of sustainable development of global mineral resource.”
The promise to provide a new kind of arrangement for minerals in Africa sounded enticing for a continent that has often complained of exploitation. But Koreans were also short of what African leaders actually demanded.
In his speech, Kenya’s President William Ruto praised South Korea’s desire to invest in Africa, which he argued was necessary the Fourth Industrial Revolution. But he then repeated his pet subject: That Korea has to joined likeminded countries to iron out problems in the global financial architecture so that African countries can get cheaper credit.
“Africa’s rich natural resources and growing and increasingly youthful, skilled population present a significant opportunity for growth in agriculture, industry and trade,” Ruto told the audience that included 24 other heads of state and government from Africa.
He called on South Korea to enhance its contribution to the World Bank’s “concessional lending window to enable African countries to effectively respond to economic shocks and pursue developmental agendas.”
“We also urge Korea, working with the International Monetary Fund, to consider channelling Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to the African Development Bank.”
This latter point was also raised by Dr Akinwumi Adesina, president of the AfDB, which he argued will “solidify the Korea-Africa relations.”
SDRs are some kind of asset reserve allocated to countries at the International Monetary Fund to enable them draw actual money on it in times of crisis. The problem is that SDRs are allocated more to a country if it is rich and may never need it.
“The IMF-approved $20 billion limit for SDR rechannelling for hybrid capital, channelled through the African Development Bank and other multilateral development banks, will deliver $80 billion of new financial support,” Dr Adesina said.
Read: Ruto, Samia eye trade deals with South Korea
The IMF had earlier allocated $20 billion worth of SDRs to multilateral lenders.
But South Korea dodged the bullet here. In the joint declaration, Seoul ensured the SDRs, debt and any pledges towards enhancing World Bank contribution for concessional lending was avoided. Instead, promised to double official development aid to Africa to $10 billion by 2030, and provide export financing of about $14 billion to Korean seeking trade and investment in Africa “as a catalyst for projects for cooperation with Africa. Most of that money will be disbursed through the through the expansion of Korean Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF).
African leaders had called for technology transfer, especially to enable countries to learn from Korea’s developed technology in robotics, biotechnology, artificial intelligence and related areas, according to President Ruto.
This too, was omitted in the joint declaration, even though they pledged people-to-people exchanges including research cooperation. Instead, South Korea said it will “share expertise” in the fields such as Customs e-Clearance system (UNI-PASS), the Korea ON-line E-Procurement system (KONEPS), and the KOrean Statistical Information Service (KOSIS). It was unclear whether that will involve actual technology transfer.
Billed as the first bloc-wide summit with South Korea, they still pledged to pursue bilateral arrangements with African countries, focusing on Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs), Trade and Investment Promotion Frameworks (TIPFs), Double Taxation Avoidance Agreements (DTAAs), and Investment Protection Agreements (IPAs) which they said will “facilitate mutual access for each other’s products to their respective markets.”
But with Africa’s exports sorely based on unprocessed minerals and agricultural products, the market in South Korea may yet depend on how fast these agreements are actually finalised. Some countries like Tanzania, Kenya and Morocco have begun discussing EPAs with Korea. But whether they boost or undercut the continental free trade area agreement known as AfCTA will be a matter of wait-and-see.
There was something to carry home, however. Tanzania secured a $2.5 billion loan facility from the EDCF, to be disbursed over the next five years. Kenya secures $238 million funding from the Korea Exim bank for a digital hub at Konza Technopolis in Machakos County. Part of the money is to also build a road link the planned city to the outside world.
Read: South Korea to host its first-ever Africa summit
Yet there were basic needs for African leaders too.
Tanzanian President Samia Suluhu welcomed Korea’s commitment to promote trade, investment and engagement among actors in the private sector, especially clean energy.
“Increased investment in clean cooking solutions will not only lower emissions and reduce deforestation, but will also reduce respiratory-related deaths and empower women” she said.
“Investing in the clean cooking agenda in Africa also presents economic opportunities in terms of development of clean cooking solutions on the continent.”
The joint declaration pledged to address cooking fuel as a longterm goal of preventing deforestation.
In the end, South Korea also pitched its defence and public security technology to Africans, seen as a wider tool to address security concerns on the continent. Some countries have already used the technology indirectly. For example, some security equipment imported from Turkey in Kenya actually use Korean technology.
